The Beauty of Humanity Movement (52 page)

“This is it,” Miss Maggie says, stopping in front of a building much wider than any other on Hàng B’ô Street.

T
double-checks the map. The gallery is bright white and stands out in marked contrast to the tube houses that flank it. He pulls open the carved wooden doors, revealing a vast space with high ceilings.

As soon as they step across the threshold, they are greeted in English by a team of immaculate girls, hair parted in the middle and slicked back tightly, all dressed alike in white, long-flowing traditional
áo dài
s. The woman in charge, European with a thick accent, stands behind an ornate gilt-edged desk and clasps her hand over the mouthpiece of her cellphone to say she’d be happy to answer any questions they might have once she’s done with her call.

“Please wander,” she says with a wave.

T
has never seen so much art in one place, except in the museum. He moves around silently, eyeing the paintings. Girl in
áo dài
. Water
buffalo. Woman working in rice paddy. Pagoda. Bamboo bridge over river. Mist over mountain. Schoolgirl in
áo dài
. Boat on Halong Bay. Water buffalo … They look like postcards to T
, the kind that tourists hand to him at the end of their trips, saying, “Would you mind sending these for me? I didn’t get a chance to buy stamps,” and pressing a ten- dollar bill into his hand.

“It’s all a bit romantic, isn’t it,” Miss Maggie says in English. “And kind of innocuous.”

T
doesn’t know the word. Like inoculation? A shot in the arm?

The owner waves apologetically and rolls her eyes.
Sotheby’s
, she mouths at Miss Maggie.

T
and Miss Maggie wander in opposite directions around the room, the blur of images becoming wallpaper, until T
spies something familiar. A painting of the Old Quarter by Bùi Xuân Phái. T
recognizes it immediately because there are several of Phái’s paintings on the walls of Café Võ, which his father used to take him to see as a boy. Mr. Võ has the most extensive collection of Phái’s work because the artist paid for all his years of coffees with paintings.

T
s father even has one of Bùi Xuân Phái’s drawings at home. It was a gift from the artist himself to Grandfather Ðạo, which Grandmother Amie somehow managed to hold on to. It’s an ink drawing on brown paper of a lady, just the black outline of her body, and apart from showing it to T
, his father has always kept it rolled up—the nude was too naked for the Party, not to mention too bourgeois—though since Ð
i m
i he has not felt the need to keep it locked up in the bedroom chest.

T
picks up a photocopied sheet of paper. The prices of the paintings are listed in dollars and have a great many zeros. But how can this be? Bùi Xuân Phái died in desperate poverty—the man didn’t even
own a bicycle, just the canes on which he used to hobble about—but this painting is on sale for thousands of dollars.